DIGI: eHistory

DIGI is the Digital Humanities Initiative of the Willson Center, the UGA Libraries, and the UGA Press. DIGI includes support for research projects through the Willson Center Digital Humanities Lab (DigiLab) and an interdisciplinary certificate program that brings together courses taught across a range of humanities disciplines. The Willson Center’s support for DIGI includes three funded research clusterstargeting Complex Systems, eHistory, and the DigiLab itself.

Co-Directors

Stephen Berry, Amanda and Greg Gregory Professor of the Civil War Era, Department of History

Claudio Saunt, Richard B. Russell Professor in American History, Department of History

Scott Nesbit, assistant professor of digital humanities, College of Environment and Design.

Description

eHistory was founded at the University of Georgia in 2011 by historians Claudio Saunt and Stephen Berry in the belief that new technologies make possible a new kind of research in the humanities, one in which students, scholars, and a broader public are full partners and collaborators. Much as sites like zooniverse.org call on “citizen scientists” and amateur astronomers to help gather and analyze data about the stars, eHistory projects involve “citizen historians” in the amassing and analyzing of historical data. This approach is often called “crowd-sourcing,” but it is an unfortunate term because it sets up false distinctions between content experts in the ivory tower and the multitude who accomplish the micro-tasks. We do not believe in such hierarchies. We believe the past belongs equally to us all. eHistory projects, then, are intended not merely to reach a broader public but to involve a broader public. And the resulting “citizen history,” we believe, better reflects the way knowledge is created and consumed in our increasingly digital world.

Willson Center for Humanities & Arts

The University of Georgia
1260 S. Lumpkin St.
Athens, GA 30602 706-542-3966wcha@uga.edu